With the brand new ipad’s high-resolution top retina display and improved graphics hardware, no wonder sales are astronomically rising. Everyone just has to have the new ipad. Steve Jobs is probably beaming from the grave.

There is something else Jobs is probably smiling at- his estate plan. The Apple co-founder was not only a brilliant innovator and businessman but he was brilliant in employing estate-planning attorneys to guide him in how best to protect his estimated $7 billion fortune.  He took advantage of techniques and strategies to ensure his family would be well provided for in the event of his death. We all know Jobs was a very private man. That’s why he chose to establish trusts such as living trusts, charitable trusts, and marital trusts to preserve his assets, protect his family, and minimize estate taxes. Unlike wills, a trust is the ideal vehicle in ensuring the privacy of one’s assets. Wills must pass through probate court, which opens the estate, and become public record. However, a trust avoids probate only for assets put into the trust.

The key to correctly using a trust is to fund it with assets. In 2009, both he and his wife transferred three real estate properties into two different trusts.  Jobs was also the largest single shareholder of Disney and it’s purported that he received millions of dollars in dividends since 2006. He most likely made the wise decision to fund the stocks into a living trust as well.

If he had not engaged in proper estate planning, Jobs would have subjected his loved ones to the burden of paying more than $2 billion in estate tax! He played it smart and got his estate plan in place. You can do the same in South Florida.

To know one’s family is well protected is definitely something worth smiling about from the other side.

For more information on successful Florida estate planning and probate techniques, please contact the South Florida law firm of Wild Felice & Partners, P.A. at 954-944-2855 or via email at info@wfplaw.com to schedule your free consultation.

It’s a Wild world.  Are you protected?